blevkog

tell me more
If you like poetry, but not poets, I'm curious how you decide to dislike an individual poet. How many poets does it take to develop a dislike of poets? Let's see, Gary Snyder, Charles Bukowski, E.E. Cummings, Emily Dickinson, Margaret Atwood, Dorothy Livesay. Like their poetry? Dislike the poets? How about Yoda's paraphrase of Bukowski - "If you spend all your time trying, then all you're doing is trying. So don't try. Just do."

I don't know that I'd be able to describe exactly what draws me to a specific poet any more than I could anything else. At least not in a few words. I'm no poet :). However, my point is not that I like some poets over others, which obviously is true, but that with rare exception I take a personal dislike to poets; even those that I enjoy reading. Take Margaret Atwood - I have read her poetry since high school and think she is better at that than she is a novelist. However, anytime I hear her interviewed, her "old wisdom" and "been there, done that" manner make me want to scream.

I think that my feelings on poetry (the art) and poets (the artist) generalize my feelings on art and artists: the product can be wonderful, but (in my mind) the personality driven to create the art is usually intolerable. Hate the artist, love the art.

Note that I keep inserting things like "in my mind" in this discussion, because I really think that this is just me.